Soliton timing jitter that is due to amplifier noise has been studied
extensively. In wavelength-multiplexed soliton systems jitter also res
ults from collisions between solitons on different channels. We derive
an expression for the variance in pulse arrival times because of such
collisions and predict system performance using this result. Jitter d
epends not only on perturbations to the fiber but also on the encoding
of information. When the expression is applied to a system with loss
and amplification, it is shown that extensive wavelength multiplexing
may significantly enhance soliton communication systems. (C) 1995 Opti
cal Society of America